


i want to look once through the eyes of someone good

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It was Lex,the body spoke, and it was careless, almost, the way that admission slipped free. As if to say,if he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be shot. If he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be here.And,maybe,Kara thought.Maybe.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 62





	i want to look once through the eyes of someone good

Lights shone in through the windows. A wave of hazy gold nothings washed over the loft.

It crashed into furniture and rode up the walls. It rose and it fell, and it rose once again. It drowned the whole of visible space in the briefest flash of light so bright it may as well have been stars — tens, and hundreds, and thousands at once — and it skipped, and it skipped, and it skipped, and it —

The room drowned in pitch. There was light, and then there was not.

Kara snapped awake. Somewhere in the distance, tires screeched and people yelled. A dog barked. People yelled. A driver with their brights on, she realized.

She didn’t bother to check the time; late was a _feeling._ It was an _emotion,_ a _something-beyond-words-and-description,_ and she was right smack in the middle.

Kara breathed in. Kara breathed out. She lie still in her bed. Not one moment passed easy.

Kara breathed in. Kara breathed out. She lie still in her bed. Not one moment felt normal.

Kara missed normal.

It seemed such a novelty, lately: a friendship built on foundation strong enough to last. Days, and days, and days of trying, and all she had to show for her efforts were bone-deep scratches on the walls of New Normal. Days, and days, and days of tension, and New Normal may as well have been the always of things.

Not that she expected any better; any path out of her self-made hell was always bound to be built on the bones of before.

They were working together; not talking. There was no going back. The world was dark. The world was calm. The world was not normal. But, _oh,_ to hope. Oh, to hope.

Kara inhaled. She exhaled. She froze. A body made itself known to her senses. The stove light clicked on. Something clattered into the kitchen sink, and at that, she moved.

One step, and another, and the next, and _there:_ the body, the light, and the sound.

The world was dark, and yet still she could see. The world was calm, and yet still she could move.

“You’re up late,” spoke the body from its perch — an old wooden stool, stolen from some other place and some other use — and it was not talking, because _they_ were not talking. The body was long, dark hair and a low, smooth voice. It was soft, soft skin and green eyes like the stars; like eternity and more; like the unceasing forever of time left unpassed, and the unmoving everything of space left unstopped. The body strained at the eyes to see. The body strained at the eyes to avoid. It wore nothing more than a pair of ironed out jeans and a plain black bra that dug barely into flesh. What must have once been a blouse sat bloodied and crumpled at its feet. The body was alone, and it sat hunched, facing anywhere but her.

It was beautiful.

It was beautiful.

 _You’re up late,_ spoke the body, and Kara leaned in slow: one elbow to the hardwood top of the kitchen island, calm, and calm, and calm. Something loosened at the body’s words. Something that had been knotted tight and high in her chest ever since the time _you’re up late_ was less surreality of worlds after hurt than normal, mundane, and safe. It came loose and burst free, whole forevers of thought at last given chance to escape.

 _You’re up late,_ spoke the body, and Kara did not acknowledge the haphazard self-surgery making a mess of its left shoulder. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing the sleep out as best she could. She inhaled. She exhaled. The blood trickled slow, drying and cracking to galaxies, and nebulae, and light.

Kara inhaled. She exhaled.

The body did not speak, but Kara still thought. Somewhere closer to her stomach than her brain — _intestinal inclinations_ only ever in the worst, most vulnerable moments — she thought, _Hello. Hello, Lena. My dearest friend. My dearest enemy. Let me help you. Let me hurt you. Let me dig my teeth into that hole in your shoulder until you finally understand the pain you have caused. I hate you. I hate you. I would tear myself to pieces to find new ways to love you._

The body did not speak, but Kara still thought. She thought that the body was beautiful. She thought that she was finally beginning to understand what it must have been like for her cousin and the other: that earth-wrecking fury of a poorly healed rift. No repair. Only absence. Only distance.

The body did not speak, of course, because neither had Kara, but she could have sworn in that moment she watched it respond in the shudder of its chest and the strain of its neck.

 _Me too,_ it didn’t say.

 _I’m glad,_ Kara thought. But she did not speak. She did not speak.

“I am,” She answered, instead. Not talking. Not talking. Silence filled the room. Somewhere else, far, far beyond the liminal something of body and blood, life made itself known. A car exhaust backfired. A glass bottle dropped. Life made itself known. There was noise, there was voice, there was more. Kara inhaled. Kara exhaled. There was dark. “You should see a doctor.”

The body threw a glance over its shoulder that spoke without speaking its thoughts on the matter. It would not see a doctor. It was better than doctors. The stove light flickered, but the body did not. Needle pierced skin, and sutures sealed wound.

There was dark. There was body. There was blood.

Kara did not move. She observed the body’s each and every vertebra, bared like so many deadly defensive mechanisms humans did not have. Warnings of danger they could not deliver. Warnings of death they could not bring. Kara observed. But she did not move. She asked, instead, “What happened?”

Sutures in. Sutures out. The body did not respond.

“Lena,” Kara whispered, so slow and so low that even she struggled to hear. So low and so slow that the name may as well have painted itself to the backs of her teeth. “What _happened?_ ”

 _What happened,_ because working together meant a bare minimum of _safety._

 _What happened,_ because _she_ most of all should have been there to help.

 _What happened,_ because _what happened,_ and _what happened, what happened, what happened —_

The body cleared its throat. The body clipped and tied the tail end of its work. The body turned, facing Kara head on across the forever of distance that kitchen island presented. The body was calm. The body was steady. The body was stoic, and harsh, and awful, and _beautiful_ , and —

The body’s red lips parted. The body’s red mouth opened. “I’m fine.”

“Lena…” The name escaped before Kara could stop it, but the body hardly seemed to care. It escaped again, and again, and again. _Lena, Lena, Lena._

“It was Lex,” and _oh,_ the body’s eyes were so vibrant and bright. They were life. They were death. They were beautiful, beautiful, green. “He had me shot.”

 _It was Lex,_ the body spoke, and it was careless, almost, the way that admission slipped free. As if to say, _if he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be shot. If he wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be here._

And, _maybe,_ Kara thought. _Maybe._

But the matter-of-factness to the body’s voice was white-hot pressure against her ribs. The silence that followed was bones crackling loose and crumbling in; heat, and heat, and heat like a thousand red suns. Kara could not move. She doubted she would ever move again.

But the body; that beautiful body sat in the haze of dim light, _it_ moved as effortlessly as breaths Kara could not trust herself to take. _It_ moved like it had always known how. _It_ rose to cross eternities of distance in barely three steps.

It was still and then wasn’t. It was earth shattering songs of stilettos on wood. It was beautiful. It was beautiful.

 _Clack,_ the body sang. Kara felt her heart peel itself open and reform from the wound.

 _Clack,_ the body sang, and every corner of earth was ripped loose and flung free.

 _Clack,_ the body sang, and suddenly it was there. Touching, and brushing, and calming like so many thousand white-hot tongues of flame. Fingers smooth and uncalloused stroked up the line of Kara’s jaw, and she eased without meaning, calmed without wanting, slowed without stopping, and suddenly, suddenly, she was spilling into palm like pliant will taking shape. She let loose a small sigh and reached blindly for wrist, gripping tight, gripping tight, gripping _tight_ for dear life.

“If Lex wanted me dead, I would be dead,” the body spoke, and its voice was unsteadier by the word. It was empty of life; of the space between all. “He wanted me shot. So, I am.”

“ _Lena_ ,” Kara breathed. It was the only word left that made sense.

The body smirked at that. Something lopsided. Something crooked. Something small. The body smirked. The body watched. There was nowhere left in the world but the hot core of its focus. Red lips, and green eyes, and fire, and fire, and fire. What had once been beyond was long lost to the dark. The body moved closer, and all fell to its light.

Kara could not speak. She did not speak.

And so, the body went on.

“I thought…” it said, and then didn’t. Its eyes faltered, just barely, before settling somewhere below. “Finding you seemed the smart choice.”

On instinct, Kara wet her lips.

“You’ll keep me safe, won’t you?” The body asked, its eyes rising to lock on the shape of Kara’s mouth. “I’m _fine,_ but — you’ll protect me?”

Kara inhaled. Kara exhaled. Pressed to the point of immobility by nothing more than a flicker of eyes. Her every breath trembled with strain.

The ground was crumbled away. She was falling blind to the embrace of kaleidoscopic nothings shining through from the green. The city was gone, and now so too was she. The only thing left was falling, and falling, and falling. Kara shut her eyes slow. The body tasted of fire.

~*~

They did not speak. They worked together, and they did not speak.

It did not stop the searing heat of want from coursing through Kara’s veins. They did not speak.

More than anything, she wanted to, but surety threaded down to the very center of her nervous system reminded that she had no more right to share. Not in their after. Not in their after. Instead, she opened her eyes. Instead, she held the body closer, and instead, and instead, and instead, she did not speak.

The body might have been sleeping. It might have been awake. Kara pressed in on its spine. She pressed in on the space between both shoulder blades: the pads of two fingers to the soft, vulnerable center. The pads of two fingers dragged down and away. The pads of two fingers replaced with her lips. Two fingers, two knuckles, at the small of its back.

If she closed her eyes and opened her mind, Kara might have sensed the body’s tension as clear as her own: thrumming, humming, a static charge of unbearable heat, and unbearable light, bright, bright, bright with celestial beauty. But her eyes did not close. And so, she did not sense. She did not know.

The body might have been sleeping. The body might have been awake.

“I hope you’re not expecting a thank you,” the body said, gravel and stone-frayed edges of voice. It twisted and rolled, turned to lie on its back and pull Kara closer. Kara tucked herself against the warm dip of its throat, and the body spoke again. “ _Oh, Supergirl, you’re the sun to my moon; the day to my night; the —_ ”

“The Super to your Luthor,” Kara cut in. The smallest of grins grew before she could stop it. Her lips pressed once to the steady beating pulse point in reach. Once, and twice, and the grin broke fully free. “I’m not. Expecting one. Just for the record.”

The night’s many songs continued on unaffected. Tires struck road. Soles danced across pavement. The city yet lived.

“This wasn’t a transaction,” the body said, just a touch too defensively to ignore. Neon bulbs in the distance flickered and flowed, tracing lines of liquid light across the body’s features in a steady moving tide. In, and out, and in, and out.

Kara answered, “I know.”

A gust of wind brushed up along glass, receding to nothing as soon as it came.

Kara was not at all prepared for the way the body spun to face her, then. Not that, or the impossible light of its eyes as they cut through the dark. She did not move, and the body went on. She did not move, and the body pressed back. Its forehead touched her own, and there was nothing else, in that moment, but beautiful, beautiful green.

For a breath, Kara tensed. In the end, she sighed.

The body whispered, “I meant what I said: I was hurt, and I trusted you…I _trust_ you.”

“I know,” Kara answered. There was nothing left to say. “I know.”

All over and again, the body was moving, and twisting, and turning away. It pulled Kara along to stretch out underneath, still bleeding faintly into the sheets as it did. Kara watched the newest stain bloom into bedding. She watched and then didn’t. She leaned in and leaned down; mouth pressed hard to the edge of that still tender wound. The body groaned something pained and obscene, unintelligible in phrasing if not quite in meaning: fingers fisted in Kara’s hair so tightly that her eyes began to water, so tightly that were she anyone else there was no doubt in her mind countless strands would have given to break. Long nails clawed at her back, and their bodies were unaligned, and their breathing unsteady, but their legs were interlocked, and their gaze still together.

The whole world fell to fade faster than blood on fabric to bright, and bright, and bright.

“I know,” Kara said, lips painting presence her presence as the body keened higher, and higher, and higher. “I know. I know. I know.”

~*~

The bed was empty when Kara woke. She opened her eyes, and the world was still dark.

Against every fiber of being, it surprised her. Fixes were never so easy as a bullet, a bed, or a night. Not in any universe. Not on any earth.

Not in any time.

Being abandoned once by what had seemed so close to true love should have taught her as much, but it hadn’t. It hadn’t. Resurfaced memories of a marriage in ruin, a future in worse, and Mon-El running, running, running away flashed before her eyes, nearly suffocating in their weight. She wanted too much. She wanted too fast.

Fixes were never so easy.

But, _oh,_ to hope. Oh, to hope.

Kara breathed in until her lungs strained from the effort. Kara breathed out almost hard enough to form ice. The city still sang. The world still turned. Life went on living.

She shoved the bedding to the floor.

~*~

The city paid her no mind as she wandered. She was no more than a face in a crowd too far gone to exist. She was a no one; an anyone; a could-not-possibly-be-her in what at least passed for pajamas — no glasses, no hair-tie, but a ratty old tank top and oversized sweats; a could-not-possibly-be-her out far, far too late to be known. And so, she wandered. Aimlessly, until she didn’t. The body’s song rose up and rose free into beautiful, beautiful form. Heartbeat and soul like the framework of life. Performance for her, and for her alone.

Its chorus led Kara to a dive bar that she had never known existed. Familiar and strange. New and well-worn. The sort of place with wobbly tables and dented up metal chairs. A row of booths in the back seemed barely still clinging to life, and the concrete flooring was cracked through to the dirt. Alien friendly, she realized; no matter the times and no matter the place, the need for drink and the need to hide never really went away. It felt like home, but a tinge of embarrassment tingled at her ears for ever daring to think hers was the only one. She stepped inside.

The body was not there.

Lena, however, was. Lena, at least somewhat closer to recovered. Lena, at least somewhat closer to normal. Lena, Lena, Lena, who must have known perfectly well how quickly she would be found. A Luthor lost in a world where she didn’t belong: an invitation, if ever Kara knew one. She let out a breath she barely realized she had been holding, and its escape cast away the weight of whole worlds.

Lena was leaned up against the bar, hair down, fitted bloodstained jeans, and all. A sight on its own, but she was also wearing a grey sweatshirt with too-broad shoulders no doubt stolen from somewhere in the loft. A glass of untouched something colored beautiful, beautiful green sat in front of her, and she picked aimlessly away at a chip in the wood.

Kara sidled up without a word. She slid the mystery drink closer. Kryptonite green; there was a joke in there, somewhere.

Further down the bar, a man greeted her with a tip of his half-empty beer. A jukebox she could not see and could sense even less played tinny renditions of mellow country songs just loud enough to fade the whole place to the dull of white noise. Kara downed the drink in one obscenely large gulp.

“Come here often?” she asked.

“Too much to do,” Lena said, smiling wryly down at the chip in the bar through heavy lidded eyes. Her thumbnail dug in once again. Some small fragments of lacquer went flying away. “Too much to think. Easy to do neither, here.”

The words, or the tone, or maybe even just the fact that they were having the conversation at all scraped wrong against the corners of Kara’s mind. Before she could stop herself, she was fighting the urge to chew her lower lip, and it was a struggle harder than any she had ever known to smile her best smile like nothing was wrong just long enough to ask, “Not worried you’ll be recognized?”

Lena’s expression turned one small shade less wry, at that. She propped her chin in her palm, bad arm held limp on the bar, and she met Kara’s gaze. “A reliable source tells me a change of clothes works wonders. She wears glasses; maybe you know her?”

“Hm,” Kara said, and forced herself to look away. Concentration tugged at her brow. She could feel it crinkling in that too-revealing way. The room was emptier than not.

The man at the end of the bar eyed Lena with a particular sort of interest, and Kara found it difficult not to roll her eyes.

For a time, Lena said nothing, evidently content to watch, content to be, content to let the moment continue on in whatever direction it wished. But, the man at the end of the bar moved, full enough of liquid courage to act, and without bothering to turn, without looking to see, Lena did the same. She reached with her good arm for the waistband of Kara’s sweats, tugging her close, and close, and close. Her hand settled in the far back pocket, gripping just slightly too hard, and it took all of Kara’s strength not to yelp or bite her tongue at the sensation of touch. It took more to keep herself from laughing a low laugh at the way the man scowled, and then turned, and then left.

“I would have come back sooner than later,” Lena said only when they were alone once again. Her voice was a whisper. Her warmth did not leave.

Kara swallowed hard. On the edges of vision, she watched as Lena’s bad arm twitched almost imperceptibly at the wrist, and so she redirected rather than lose herself to the unsurety of doubt. As far as Kara sensed, the wound wasn’t infected, but the smallest drop of red was already seeping through the sweatshirt’s pale gray. Doubt grew fast. Bloodstains grew faster.

She asked, “Are you sure you don’t need to see someone for that?”

Wherever that unknowable, unseeable jukebox was, it skipped, and it sputtered, and it moved to the next song. A man with a voice like crushed asphalt crooned his entrance through the slow back and forth of deep chords.

Lena didn’t answer. Her silence was answer enough.

But Kara was still Kara, and enough was _never_ enough.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

“It’s okay,” was all Lena offered in answer. She pulled Kara closer, each and every finger trailing sunshine heat up her spine until there was nothing but a confident grip at the back of her neck. Nothing but beautiful, beautiful green.

The air caught in Kara’s throat. It still wasn’t enough.

“I can…” she tried, only to stumble over the shape of her words. Her throat was too dry. Her tongue felt too thick. “I know I’m not great at this, but —”

A breathy laugh that might have been real and might have been not cracked at Lena’s lips. For a moment, she looked ready to say something real, and serious, and wholly inappropriate for a late-night talk in the middle of a bar. Whatever it might have been, it died unspoken on the tip of her tongue.

“Kara, you’re positively _super,_ ” she said instead, and it felt all wrong.

It felt wrong, and Kara could not place why. Her gaze darted down and away. It fought hard not to return.

“Did you not…?” She asked, unsure how to finish. She paused just long enough to lick her lips; to freeze in the motion with tongue pressed against pulse. There was something right to say in the moment, some feeling or some truth that Kara should have easily, easily been able to tap into. Kryptonian knowledge worth at least ten Earth degrees, and the only handhold in reach the feeling that a barrier separated her mind and emotion whenever it came to Lena. Only Lena. And because she could not begin to fathom where to begin at tearing it all down, the only thing she could bring herself to add was a small, terrified, “Come back with me. I’ll —”

Lena waved down the bartender. She asked for two drinks, and Kara felt every word reverberate straight through to her heart. Her knees went weak.

“Trust me,” Lena said, and her eyes softened.

 _Trust me,_ she said, and it felt like maybe Kara could find something better to say, if that was what Lena wanted. The magic words, the magic intonation, the magic something to send them crashing straight through to the opposite sides of both doubt and of trust.

But, _Trust me,_ Lena said, and Kara had no choice but to listen.

~*~

She listened.

~*~

Through to the first fragile edges of morning, she listened. Through drinks and through laughs, and through steady growing touch, she listened, and listened, and _listened._

~*~

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Lena asked, half-laughing the words practically into Kara’s mouth. The bedding slipped from her shoulders.

Kara listened, but did not respond, so accustomed to the language of taste and of touch that the shape of spoken word may as well have been nothing at all. Her legs wrapped tight around Lena’s waist, and the laughter turned louder.

Lena went on, “Cat stuck in a tree? Sports car speeding through a school zone? Anything?”

Kara pressed her heels insistently into the small of Lena’s back. She pulled herself out of the not-quite-kiss and nuzzled the underside of her jaw.

They were very bad at this, the both of them. The talking. The leaving. The staying. All of it. All of it. Star crossed princesses from kingdoms solar systems apart. The reclusive billionaire heiress with eyes only for repairing the damage her family caused and — not an heiress exactly, certainly not an heiress _anymore,_ but something close enough, even in the aftermath of two dead planets — the alien girl who only ever loved once. The alien girl with the nasty habit of losing everyone foolish enough to love _her._ From James, to Winn, to Mon-El, and all the way back to poor Kenny Li. Good thing, then, that they were so bad at this. Good thing, then, that Lena didn’t feel the same.

They were working together.

They were not talking.

There was comfort in that. There was safety in that. No matter how bad they were, Lena would always be there to be bad together more.

“You ask like you want me gone,” Kara said, quiet as a breath. She lapped her tongue out at the sensitive space beneath Lena’s ear and smiled — barely, barely, just barely — at the sharp rush of shudder it earned. “Do _you_ have somewhere to be?”

Kara nuzzled into the spot.

Somewhere outside, birds began singing.

And Lena pulled away. She sighed the sort of sigh that made clear it was a terrible struggle to do so, but she pulled away all the same, and she settled on her back. She pulled away all the same, and they still did not talk. Sun rose, life woke, the city warmed slowly to morning, and they still did not talk.

So, Kara watched. She saw. She listened. To the rise and the fall of Lena’s chest; to the in-out of breath; to the rustle and flow of limbs tangled in sheets, she listened, and listened, and listened.

One arm lie draped over the soft of Lena’s chest. One hand twirled slowly through stray locks of dark hair. Kara watched. Kara saw. Kara listened.

It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. It didn’t much matter. Morning was starting its slow fade to day, and Lena was moving all over again. Rolling, and sitting, and scanning for clothes from far out of reach near the foot of the bed.

“Do you trust me?” she asked, not at all looking back.

A moment passed and washed sensation like the polar opposite of vertigo — what Kara assumed vertigo must be like in reverse, at least: the nauseating sensation of looking too far up from too far down on the ground — down the whole of Kara’s throat. Intestinal something, not quite inclination. She swallowed it down and did not speak it to life.

They weren’t talking. But. Kara opened her mouth.

It was instinct, then, the way she breathed, “ _Yes._ ”

It was instinct, the way she rose from the not-quite-comfort of bed to crawl close as she could on her hands and her knees.

It was instinct, the way she stopped as she neared. The way she kneeled. Reverent hate, reverent something. She kneeled, and she slowed, and she pressed herself in. Chest to back, hands to arms, more, and more, and more. Her lips found new home at the gentle curve of Lena’s jaw.

Still, they did not talk.

Kara let her arms fall to press flat against Lena’s abdomen. The daylight grew warmer. Her nails dug softly in. Almost against her will, her lips parted. Almost against her will, she found strength to speak the words, “We can’t keep putting this off forever.”

And they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t. Because sooner or later, one of them would snap. Sooner or later, there would be no more later, the whole of what remained lost to fury and rage like the collapse of a star; the whole of what remained newly unmade and unraveled all the way down to the beat of life’s core.

Lena nodded.

Lena turned.

Kara was wary to move by even one inch. But _oh,_ when she did.

Oh, when she did.

That beautiful, beautiful green was the only sight in the world, and at last, she understood. Kryptonite green — there _was_ a joke in there, after all.

Lena’s eyes were the most painful kind of poison. Lena was death. Lena was death, and Kara wanted more.

Lena was death, but then, so too was she.

They were once something else. Before, when friendship was a word built on guilt and on lies. They were once something else. They had died and reborn and died over and again. No longer. No longer.

Kara could hardly still breathe. She could hardly still speak. She would have impaled herself on the blade of hurt left between them for even one more chance to know the taste of Lena’s mouth.

“I know,” Lena said, and Kara knew she felt the same.

 _I know,_ Lena said, and she leaned in, instead. Her words tasted of fire.

When they parted, out of breath and off balance, white-gold light bled in through the curtains and tracked across Lena’s face, dulling that beautiful, beautiful green to something positively harmless. Something positively human. Air rushed to fill Kara’s lungs. She didn’t know what to do with the feeling.

She inhaled. She exhaled.

Lena smiled her beautiful poison smile.


End file.
